My first thought on seeing this headline was "what, again?"
Don't get me wrong, the new design looks great, but it feels like every six months they switch between having side navigation and putting everything on top. Every time they change there's a definite improvement, but you'd think they'd be able to come up with a design that works for at least a few years.
My thoughts exactly. We've used GitLab since version 6 [1] and things have always felt like they are in a state of flux ([2] [3] [4]). For an open source project this is tolerable. I do wonder what enterprise users make of this constant UI change? Now that the navigation is back on the left, we'll probably see it collapsible in 9.5 and then morphed into a horizontal bar by version 10, rinse and repeat.
As someone who has never used GitLab, it is perhaps interesting to note that I would have literally no idea of the chronology of those images you've linked; if I had to guess, I would say the grey one (1) looks older than the purple one (4), but the other two look almost entirely unrelated.
> For an open source project this is tolerable. I do wonder what enterprise users make of this constant UI change?
That's interesting to think about. What is the difference between the two types of users? Is it that the open source project is in no hurry and can accept a delay due to interface hassles? Is it that enterprise users are less capable and need a stable environment to function?
We are glad to hear you like the new design and feel that each change has been an improvement. We value iteration here at GitLab, making the smallest change possible and getting it out as quickly as possible. This allows us to ship, gather feedback, and readjust quickly. You can learn more about our process here: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#iteration
Agreed; changing business software for change's sake is plain evil and will cost you customers. People still use the Bugzilla UI with 76 mandatory input fields and like it that way.
I believe that you're expemplifying survivor bias. People use Bugzilla despite its horrible UI (and in fact, I know of several teams that have GreaseMonkey scripts that create an alternative UI on top of the base Bugzilla one). Bugzilla does a lot of things right, but its UI is not one of them.
GitLab had similar problems with its UI, and they've been improving it. Personally I welcome the improvements (though we use CE and not EE internally).
Salesforce is a great example. It is amazingly "old fashioned", tiny and uses non of the UX paradigms of the last 10 years. However, it gets work done really, really well.
I'm disregarding the Lightning-UI versions for now.
Since you are redesigning UI features, are there any plans for a site-native dark theme? Seeing as there already multiple code themes available, it seems within the context of the configurable UI part of the goal. There have been Stylish themes for gitlab in the past but they break a lot because gitlab is a very large website to try restyling from the outside.
Solarized-dark with a white frame can be quite grating on the eyes.
All of my other code workflow (terminal and editor) is in a dark theme, having to switch to GitLab to review an MR can actually be quite uncomfortable to do because there's such a leap in contrast.
The dark theme I use is Dracula[1], it's a really beautiful theme and if there was a way to view GitLab using it it'd be incredible.
I'd love native support for a dark theme! As a workaround, I've found darkreader's (browser extension) default handling of Gitlab's light UI elements to be exactly what I want. It handles about 90% of other sites I frequent effortlessly and is easily toggled with a keyboard shortcut.
There is an issue for that https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/18596. It has not been our priority as we have been working on the navigation but it is something we are keeping in mind for future focus :)
GitLab are one of the only companies I really look up to as a UXer. You guys just Do It Right. Thanks for being so transparent into your process and even sharing InVision prototypes. More companies should do this.
If anyone at Gitlab is reading this, please, please, please do something with the wide blank space at the top of the home page of a project.
The project logo, name and short description are really side information that you don't care when you are working everyday on the same projects.It is a waste of space that distract the user and does not let him jump right into the code.
Cheers and thank you
I don't often use Gitlab, I just logged in this morning to update my 2FA and saw the new nav in the profile. Enabled it and instantly felt a lot more compelled to use the site.
I'm a big fan of your guys' work but using Github for a variety of reasons (UI is a big reason why), so I really mean it when I say the improvement is noticeable.
BTW, have you thought about talking to Zenhub to get a "Zenlab"? Given that Gitlab implements a lot more than Github in terms of Zenhub features it might be worth looking into.
It's qualitative research: as long as you take sufficient precaution picking the subjects to avoid obvious blind spots, it should be enough to get a rough idea of glaring mistakes or problems and to get a good feel of how users perceive and navigate the UI. It also allows you to individually observe effects that would often be "averaged out" by a larger sample. It's being used as a first step (before they conduct a broader quantitative research) so it sounds pretty valid.
GitLab’s UX Researcher here. TheCoreh has summed things up well but I thought I’d share my own thoughts.
During usability testing, you eventually reach a point where users start demonstrating the same behaviour. Once that happens, it’s not really worth speaking to more users, as you’re not learning anything new. You’re better to implement changes based on the user feedback you have and then re-test with different users. The navigation has been through 3 rounds of usability testing (24 users in total). Sometimes we tested with more than one prototype at once, hence us testing with a few extra users.
We conducted usability testing to get us to a point where we felt comfortable sharing the new navigation with a much wider audience. There’s still more research to come!
On the other hand, you do not need to run a scientific study to make every UX decision. There is a lot of "information" (in an abstract sense) in a person's intuition, experience and common sense. Using a small usability group to validate is quite sensible.
It's a slightly more formalised version of the 'corridor' UX test, where you grab the first person passing in the corridor and find out what isn't obvious to them about what you've just built.
I really like the UI paradigm built by gitbucket - https://gitbucket.github.io/. Its like they took Bitbucket and made it better.
On that note - I cant believe how unusable Bitbucket is.
P.S. And obviously love the fact that it is a single jar file deploy.
GitBucket's UI used to be a full rip of GitHub until they received a notice to change it [0]. They then switched over to using a UI built with AdminLTE [1]. I'm not sure if the current UI is still based on it though.
Something I found missing is the missing shortcut to easily go the page of "merged request assigned to me" (which is the link 'merge request' in the global menu) as it's the single page I visit the most every day at work, to see across all projects , the merge requests that i need to check.
The third icon from the right is a quick link to "Merge Requests Assigned to Me" and it is the same as in the old version of the menu. The quick link in the hamburger menu was simply a duplicate place to find this action.
To see all "Merge Requests" in a project, you will find that option in the sidebar now, as that is contextual to the Project you are in.
Sorry , I meant "keyboard shortcurt" , I know the link on the left menu is to go to this page, but at least in 9.2, if you have a long page, you need to scroll up to the reach the top, which is inefficient, and for which a keyboard shortcut would be extremely welcome. There's already one, but for only the merge request of the current project.
Readit News
Don't get me wrong, the new design looks great, but it feels like every six months they switch between having side navigation and putting everything on top. Every time they change there's a definite improvement, but you'd think they'd be able to come up with a design that works for at least a few years.
[1]: https://about.gitlab.com/images/6_0/mr_on_fork.png [2]: https://about.gitlab.com/images/8_0/ci_dash.png [3]: https://about.gitlab.com/images/9_0/navigation.png [4]: https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/redesigning-gitla...
That's interesting to think about. What is the difference between the two types of users? Is it that the open source project is in no hurry and can accept a delay due to interface hassles? Is it that enterprise users are less capable and need a stable environment to function?
GitHub does ui changes too but they seem to have a decent structure to work on, not changing stuff dramatically.
GitLab had similar problems with its UI, and they've been improving it. Personally I welcome the improvements (though we use CE and not EE internally).
Solarized-dark with a white frame can be quite grating on the eyes.
The dark theme I use is Dracula[1], it's a really beautiful theme and if there was a way to view GitLab using it it'd be incredible.
[1]: https://draculatheme.com/vim/
I'm a big fan of your guys' work but using Github for a variety of reasons (UI is a big reason why), so I really mean it when I say the improvement is noticeable.
BTW, have you thought about talking to Zenhub to get a "Zenlab"? Given that Gitlab implements a lot more than Github in terms of Zenhub features it might be worth looking into.
During usability testing, you eventually reach a point where users start demonstrating the same behaviour. Once that happens, it’s not really worth speaking to more users, as you’re not learning anything new. You’re better to implement changes based on the user feedback you have and then re-test with different users. The navigation has been through 3 rounds of usability testing (24 users in total). Sometimes we tested with more than one prototype at once, hence us testing with a few extra users.
We conducted usability testing to get us to a point where we felt comfortable sharing the new navigation with a much wider audience. There’s still more research to come!
If you’re interested in getting involved with the research, then GitLab has a research panel you can join: https://about.gitlab.com/researchpanel/ or you can just drop us your feedback on: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/34917
P.S. And obviously love the fact that it is a single jar file deploy.
[0] http://gitbucket.github.io/gitbucket-news/gitbucket/2016/03/...
[1] http://gitbucket.github.io/gitbucket-news/gitbucket/2016/07/...
https://bitbucket.org/search
I write add-ons for Bitbucket Server. I'm curious to know what you find unusable about it.
To see all "Merge Requests" in a project, you will find that option in the sidebar now, as that is contextual to the Project you are in.